Fell Murder

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “Then you last saw him at half-past four?”

  “Nay. ’Twas three o’clock as near as makes no difference. I heard Mr. Trant call to him at the end, ‘That’s about the lot, Mr. Garth,’ he called—but I didn’t see him, because he was above me in the wood and the undergrowth’s thick there.”

  “Did he answer when Mr. Trant spoke to him?”

  “I didn’t hear him answer. Trant shouted that they’d auction the foxes at High Barn, and after that I went down into the dales. The beaters were around below me, and I saw Mr. Lamb and Mr. Hayman as I went.”

  “You’d better tell me exactly who was at the shoot,” said Layng, and Staple, taking his time, gave the following information. The guns had been Mr. Garth himself, Staple, Trant, Martin Lamb of High Fell, Bob Ashthwaite of Greenbeck, James Hayman of Lower Stacks, and Tim Langhorn of Middle Field. The beaters had been the youngsters—Jem Moffat of Garthmere, Matt Briggs of Lonsghyll, Jack Lamb of High Fell, Giles and Peter Hayman of Lower Stacks and Will Langhorn of Middle Field. In addition, Jock had been among the number.

  “Jock who?” asked Layng.

  “Just Jock. Likely he’s got a name, but I don’t know it. He’s simple, is Jock. He works for Bob Ashthwaite, and I’m told he’s a tidy worker, though he can neither count nor write his name.”

  “Ashthwaite…” Layng pondered over the name and then turned quickly back to Staple. “This man Ashthwaite—Mr. Garth took him into court about some arrears of rent.”

  “Aye,” agreed Staple stolidly. “Three years ago come Michaelmas that’d be.”

  “Does he often come to shoot on Mr. Garth’s land?”

  “Not so often—but this wasn’t a pleasure shoot. Mr. Trant wanted these foxes shot, and Bob Ashthwaite’s a good shot. Mr. Trant was free to ask whom he would.”

  Again Layng pondered. Then he asked: “Did you see Ashthwaite again after the shoot?”

  Staple hesitated; then he replied: “Aye. I saw him in the dales, down by Lawson’s close. After the hunt that was.”

  “In the dales, eh? What was he doing there? His place—Greenbeck, that’s over beyond Middle Field, isn’t it? A matter of five miles away.”

  “Three, if you take the bridle path over Brough’s land.”

  “But the dales are in the opposite direction. What was he doing down there?”

  “I didn’t ask. Looking for some strayed cattle, likely. The heifers go mad for the fog grass in the dales in the back end. Good feed that is.”

  “Perhaps it is, but have you ever known a heifer stray for five miles?”

  “Ay. When they’re bulling they’ll go for miles.”

  Layng snorted impatiently—stock raising did not interest him. “Did Ashthwaite say he was looking for strayed cattle?” he demanded.

  “Nay. I didn’t ask him.”

  “Had he his gun with him?”

  “He had. He’d been shooting at the fox hunt.”

  “Where was his place during the shoot? Above you or below you?”

  “Above. Ashthwaite was at the top of the gill above Mr. Garth. Trant said if one of the foxes diddled all of us, Bob would be safe to stop him.”

  “When you went down to the river, did you see Ashthwaite behind you?”

  “No.”

  “Where was he when you first saw him?”

  “By the old thorns, just above the ford.”

  “At the bottom of the lane leading down from that shed, eh?”

  “Aye. How do you come to know that, Superintendent? That’s Mr. Garth’s land, that is.”

  “Never mind how I know. If Ashthwaite had followed Mr. Garth to the shed, he could have reckoned on getting away down along the river without being seen.” Staple made no answer, and Layng went on, “About this boy, Jock. What was it he said when he first saw you standing over Mr. Garth’s body?”

  “He said, ‘Tha’s shot him.’”

  “Are you sure he didn’t say, ‘He has shot him’?”

  “That he did not,” replied Staple, “though it would have been all the same if he had. The boy’s a natural: what he says can no more be relied on than an idiot’s babble.”

  Layng was silent for a minute or so, writing very swiftly. Then he said: “Were any other members of this household at the shoot, or fox hunt, or whatever you call it?”

  “You’d better ask them. If I’d seen them I should have said so.”

  Layng leaned back in his chair. “Do you know anything about Mr. Garth’s eldest son, Richard?”

  Staple stared blankly in front of him. “I knew him as a boy and as a lad,” he replied. “He left home close on twenty-five years ago, and I haven’t heard any one name him since.”

  “He quarrelled with his father before he left home?”

  “Maybe he did. ’Twasn’t my business to inquire.”

  “Have you heard any one speak of him lately?”

  “Nay. Not for years. Twenty-five years is long enough to forget—and to be forgotten.”

  “Now, Mr. Staple,” and Layng faced the other squarely. “Mr. Garth has been shot—murdered so far as appearances can be relied on. Can you make any suggestion as to who had any motive for shooting him?”

  “No, Superintendent. I’ve no suggestions to make. I found Mr. Garth, as I told you, lying in the mire in the hull. I don’t know who shot him, though I can tell you straight that I’m not the one who did it. Neither do I believe Bob Ashthwaite did. It doesn’t make sense to nurse a grudge for years and then go and shoot a man on his own land when every one knows you’ve a gun handy.”

  Layng paused again. “Did you know that Mr. Garth kept some gear in that shed?”

  “In the hull? Aye. I knew that well enough.”

  “It was general knowledge? Every one knew?” asked Layng.

  “You’d better ask them, Superintendent. It’s not for me to answer for everybody. You’re town-bred, and maybe you don’t know country ways. That hull’s on Mr. Garth’s land, on the home farm. Farmers don’t often go on each other’s land, nor go meddling with gear in other folks’ buildings, be it house or barn or hull.”

  “Thanks for the information.” Layng’s voice was sarcastic, though he should have known that it was a mistake to be sarcastic with a man like Staple. The Superintendent went on:

  “Perhaps you can answer the question if I put it this way: would every one in this house have known that Mr. Garth kept his gear in the hull?”

  “Nay, I can’t tell you. Better ask them yourself,” replied Staple.

  Layng was beginning to lose patience. “You’re the Garthmere bailiff, aren’t you? What does that imply?”

  “Not that I manage the home farm,” replied Staple in his most stolid voice. “I see about letting the farms if they fall vacant: I collect the rents, I report on repairs and see they’re done if need be—and I see that the tenants keep to their agreements: that they don’t sell oats or hay to be consumed off their land, and that they keep the hedges and gates and ditches in order, and keep the land in good heart.”

  There was a pause, a deliberate silence on Layng’s part, and then he asked: “Then it amounts to this: you can give no assistance or make any suggestion in the matter of discovering your master’s murderer?”

  Staple sat very still, his grey eyes bright, his face showing more colour than his wont, but his expression did not alter.

  “There’s no help I can give, for I know nought about it,” he replied, “and as for suggestions, you’ll get no suggestions from me that may put a halter round an innocent man’s neck. You can suggest I shot Mr. Garth, or Bob Ashthwaite shot him, or Jock—and it’d be the devil and all to prove we had no hand in it. I know naught about it, and as God heard me, that’s true.”

  * * *

  Charles Garth was the next to be interviewed by the Superintendent. “Charles Laurence Philip de L
isle Garth, aged forty-seven, late of the Maramula Estate, Malaya, second son of the late Robert Garth. Landed in England in January last.”

  Layng made a small deviation from his precise manner of question and answer here.

  “You were in Singapore, sir?”

  “I was. I left in a Chinese tramp steamer with about a hundred others—one of the last boatloads to escape.”

  “It must have been a shocking experience,” observed Layng.

  Charles studied him coolly. “Undoubtedly—but it has no bearing on the matter in hand, Superintendent.”

  Layng took the implied snubbing quietly, and went on: “All the same, I should be very interested if you would tell me by what route you reached England.”

  “Via a nameless atoll in the Java group, where we lay exposed for seven bloody days, then via Java itself, Port Darwin, Sydney, Melbourne, Durban, Cape Town, St. Helena, and Southampton.” Charles studied the police officer with raised eyebrows. “Geography seems to me to be a little wide of the point, if I may say so,” he added. “Correct me if I am wrong.”

  Layng mumbled something that sounded like an apology, then cleared his throat and said:

  “I have been trying to find out what the members of this household were doing during the course of this afternoon, sir. Did you join the shooting party?”

  “Meaning the fox hunt? I went to have a look at the arrangements, to see how the guns were posted, but I didn’t stay. It looked a slow business to me—and in point of fact I haven’t got a gun of my own here, and I can’t get on to terms with the antiques I’m offered. I came back here before the shooting began.”

  “You were in the house for the rest of the afternoon, then?”

  “No. I was not. I was out at the back, in the shippons. As you may have observed, there are farm buildings at the east end of this peculiar house. It’s never made up its mind if it’s a castle or a farm. Actually I was doing some lime-washing in a shippon close by the kitchens.”

  “Is there any independent confirmation of that, sir? It will simplify the inquiry if such points can be settled by additional witnesses.”

  “Thanks for explaining,” said Charles. “You can ask the old Biddy in the kitchen if she noticed me in the shippons, or there-abouts. She’ll probably complain that each time I came inside the door I spilt lime wash on her damned kitchen flags.”

  “Thank you. You were about the place until—?”

  “Until tea time, when I came in and had tea with my sister. She went out to milk, and when I followed her, some minutes later, I heard that idiot boy shouting something about the old hull. I went along there and found Staple beside my father’s body.”

  “Thank you. I think it will be accepted that Mr. Garth was shot within an hour of Staple’s discovery of the body. The fox hunt broke up about half-past four, I gather, and most of the guns then went to the auction of the foxes at the High Barn. Mr. Staple went down to the river, he tells me. Can you remember hearing any shot between half-past four and half-past five?”

  “I shouldn’t have noticed it if I had,” replied Charles. “There had been shooting all the afternoon, and one shot more or less wouldn’t have been noticeable.”

  “This would have been one isolated shot.”

  “In any case, I didn’t notice it. Actually, I believe Jem Moffat did some potting at rabbits after the hunt was over. He doesn’t often get a chance of being out with a gun and he was enjoying life. Anyway, I didn’t register any particular shot. I just didn’t notice.”

  “Can you make any suggestion at all as to who might have held a grudge against Mr. Garth, or been at enmity with him?”

  Charles shrugged his shoulders. “No. I can’t,” he said bluntly. “You’ve got to remember that I have only been back at home for a few months, after years spent abroad. I simply don’t understand what might be called feudal politics. Anybody in this district will tell you that my father was a hard man; some call him mean, and every one knows he’s obstinate, but I believe he was generally respected. He was over eighty, but he still took his share in the farm work, and believe me, he worked without sparing himself—and expected others to do the same. You can say if you like that he was a harsh old curmudgeon, always ready to abuse others, but to get him into focus you’ve got to remember his age and his position. He may have been a tyrant, both to his own family and to his tenants, but he’s been the same for sixty years, I gather.” Charles paused, and added at length: “No. I can’t help you. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Layng turned back a page or two in his notebook, and then said: “Miss Garth tells me that there was some sort of accident with a gun yesterday—a gun was knocked over and went off unexpectedly.”

  “Yes,” said Charles, looking the other full in the face. “You say my sister has told you about it—so you know as much as there is to know. I wasn’t in the room when it happened—but even if I had been, it’s not likely that my description of the matter would deviate from my sister’s. It might help you in your researches if you get it firmly into your head that my sister is not only an accurate person, she’s a strictly truthful one also.”

  Layng flushed a little and replied stiffly: “I had no suggestion to the contrary. As I explained before, we always try to get corroboration of evidence where possible. Were you in the house when this accident happened?”

  “I was—and I came running to this room when I heard the shot. What had happened was plain enough. My father, who is—or was—an impatient man, had pushed his chair back in such a manner as to knock over the table against which the gun had rested. In falling, the gun had gone off. My father was furious over it—as any other man would be furious if a gun had gone off under his nose. He was swearing like a trooper. However, you will find out on inquiry that his rage soon evaporated. He and my sister spent the afternoon together assisting a heifer with its first calf. His rages were soon over—that was one of his outstanding characteristics.”

  “Thank you,” said Layng. “In conclusion I ask you again—have you any suggestion to offer which may help the course of this inquiry?”

  “I’m sorry, but I have no suggestion at all to make,” replied Charles. “As I observed before—the thing doesn’t make sense—that’s as near a suggestion as I care to get.”

  Layng laid down his pen and studied the other deliberately. “I don’t quite gather what you mean, sir,” he said. “Are you implying that the murder was the work of an idiot—a mental defective, in fact?”

  “Possibly,” said Charles. “It’s not for me to make assumptions. That’s your province.”

  Layng glanced down at his papers. “You have an elder brother,” he observed. Charles waited for the Superintendent to go on. “When did you last see him?”

  Charles hitched an eyebrow—a habit of his.

  “When did I last see Richard?” He seemed to ask the question of himself. “Sometime early in 1919. I can’t tell you the exact date.”

  “When did you last hear news of him?”

  “Later in the same year—1919. I heard that he and his wife went to Canada. In 1920 I went out to Malaya, and I heard from my sister a few years later that Richard had lost his wife. Since then I have heard nothing of him—and neither has any one else in these parts, so far as I know.”

  “He quarrelled with your father before he went away?”

  “I believe he did—but your detection seems a bit hoary to me, Superintendent. Tell me, how much do you remember of your own quarrels of twenty-five years ago? Are you prepared to commit murder on motives a quarter of a century old? Once again, to use my previous expression, that doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “And you have no sensible suggestion of your own to offer?”

  Charles merely chuckled at the sarcastic tone. “None whatever, Superintendent. Don’t think I’m frivolous. I’m not. I take things seriously. If I could help you, I would.”


  “Thank you, sir. Now might I see your younger brother, Mr. Malcolm Garth.”

  “My half-brother. He’s not in the house at the moment and I don’t know where he is. He often goes out on his own and we expect him when we see him.”

  “Then I will see Mrs. Moffat next.”

  “Right. I’ll send her in to you.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was after sunset before the Superintendent left Garthmere Hall, but Malcolm Garth had not yet returned home. Marion had said that he had probably gone up to the fells to see his bee-hives which had been taken up for the bees to collect the heather honey. “He often comes back late because he’s a poor walker and gets tired easily,” she told Layng. “When he gets up there as likely as not he’ll go to sleep in the heather. I’ve often known him do it.”

  “Does he take a gun with him?”

  “Goodness, no! Malcolm loathes guns. He’s like a gun-shy dog. He probably cleared out this afternoon because he dislikes the noise the guns make at the fox hunt. Malcolm’s like that. He never shoots. I doubt if he knows how to load a gun even.”

  Layng pondered over this and other things he had heard at Garthmere as he got into his car and started on his way back to Carnton. He was conscious of a sense of irritation, a feeling that he had not done as well as he had hoped to do. When he had set out it had been with a feeling, “Here is my chance. I’ve been waiting for an important case and now I’ve got it.” Had he but known it, the very urgency of his ambition to do well and get results quickly had been responsible for the resultant sense of frustration. He had tried to go quickly when he should have fitted in to the slower temper of those he questioned. He thought of Mrs. Moffat, and dismissed her with an irritable exclamation of “old fool.” The fact was that Mrs. Moffat had been frightened, and the result of Layng’s sharp manner and abrupt speech had been to frighten her further into obstinate silence. When questioned in detail she got confused and had tended to contradict herself, parrying the Superintendent’s question with “I couldn’t be sure like.” True, she admitted that she had gone running to the office yesterday, when she heard a gun shot in the house, but her description of the incident had been hopelessly confused. First she had said that Charles and Malcolm had been in the office with Marion, then she had said that only old Mr. Garth was in the office—“swearing like.” Layng had next tried to question Janey, the fourteen-year-old maid, but the only result was a flood of tears. Mrs. Moffat had been called in again to assist, and had kept on reiterating “Her’s a weeper. Comes over her if you’re sharp-like.” Layng had felt exasperated, and thinking back to the ignominious scene he swore to himself over the time he had wasted with a half-wit. He turned sharply to Harding who was driving him.